So welcome to an episode of “what on earth are we going to do
with this story”.

A story in which we are told of God committing an act of
terrorism. Systematically killing the firstborn of every family in an entire
nation, in order to get the political leadership to change their direction.

This week Sureka I celebrated our twenty second
wedding anniversary. Now while many of the details of the preparations for the
wedding have faded into the midst of time (actually, I managed to avoid much of
the planning by still being in England when decisions had to be taken), one
thing that does stick in my mind was the incredible process of making a seating
plan for the reception.

I love the call of Jeremiah. Not for those famous
opening words – “before I formed you in the womb I knew you” – with which God declares that Jeremiah was
set aside for great things; nor for the way that God puts the words into Jeremiah’s
mouth, appointing him to pluck up and to tear down, to build and to plant, to
destroy and overthrow – just with words.

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been looking at
the nature of the invitation that we have received, and in whatever way,
responded to, in our own lives, the invitation that we have to share with the
world around us.

Prayer is complicated. There is probably no part of the Christian faith that is at the same time so universally valued and respected, and at the same time so diversely understood, or openly not understood.

As we explore, over these next few weeks, this idea of
the invitation, the invitation that we have received, from God, the invitation
that we have to offer to the world around us, the invitation to taste and see
that the Lord is good, to experience the love and welcome of Jesus Christ,
we’re going to spend a bit of time just reflecting on what it is that we have
ourselves received, what this ‘good news’ is that we have to share.

Hosea, along with the so-called minor prophets, is
probably one of the less frequently explored books of the Bible. And that’s
probably understandable – the minor prophets do have their odd characteristics,
their strange characters speaking to situations which are very different from
our, frequently using imagery which is very alien.

So two weeks ago in our reading from the letter to the
Galatian Church we explored how Paul exhorted the followers of Jesus in Galatia
to take seriously the freedom that Christ had won for them and the Spirit had
gifted to them: freedom from the guardianship of the Law, that had existed to
protect and guide God’s people until the day that they were set free to live
according to the freedom of the Spirit – the freedom in which, he gloriously
declared, releases us from those shackles of male or female, Jew or Gentile,
slave or free.

One of the great temptations for the preacher, I believe, is to always choose to preach on the bits of the Bible that you are most comfortable with, that you find clearly and easily conforming to the overall narrative of the scriptures as you understand it.

Last Sunday, of course, was Pentecost. But you might
have noticed that our readings left out perhaps the most famous part of the
Pentecost story – the Spirit descending on the disciples like tongues of fire,
and the miracle of language that followed, as everyone heard them proclaiming
the good news of Jesus Christ in their own language.

The disciples had been told to go back to Jerusalem
and wait; promised that they would receive power from heaven, that they would
be Jesus’ witnesses throughout Israel, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

So we come to the last week of our series on “Hope from the last book”, our reflections on the message of hope that the book of Revelation, though it was written for another people in another time, carries for us in modern day Australia.

The old saying goes that
there are only two certainties in life – death, and taxes (although it does
sometimes seem that some of our ultra-wealthy individuals and companies are
working quite hard, and with some success, to eliminate the latter).

Just to note – those of you who follow along with the lectionary may have noticed that this week’s reading doesn’t match up – in order to make a five week series of readings cover the six weeks between Easter and Pentecost we’ve added this passage, and for the next few weeks we’ll be sort of running one week behind.